


Bons Reves

by MadameReveuse



Category: The Pacific (TV)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, I'm Sorry, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sickfic, Snafu's martyr complex, continuation of Bons Temps, traiteurs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-09
Updated: 2015-10-09
Packaged: 2018-04-25 12:41:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4961050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MadameReveuse/pseuds/MadameReveuse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eugene is still getting his nightmares, and Snafu finds a rather unconventional way to help. But he soon finds he has to pay the price for that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bons Reves

**Author's Note:**

> For this to make sense, you probably should read my other fic, Laissez Les Bons Temps rouler, first. This is a continuation of that storyline, but if you don't want the cute happy ending of Bons Temps ruined by the gratuitous ANGST you're about to read, turn around now. The ones of you who notice the tiny cameo from another HBO war show get a cookie!!  
> Strangely enough, the way I describe the "magical" healing here is inspired by Terry Pratchett, namely by the Witches novels. I may have taken cues off of how Granny Weatherwax and later Tiffany Aching take their patients' pain.  
> Partial credit goes to OddmentsandTweaks (hi Tash!!!) for Snafu's bangle and some other things we discussed.  
> Self-harm is mentioned once towards the end of the fic, but only in passing.   
> As usual, this is based solely on the fictional characters in The Pacific. Not for one second did I think of the real veterans that bear their names, and no disrespect is intended towards them.

On one of his and Eugene’s occasional visits to the old bayou, Snafu made a stealthy early-morning-trip through the swamp. Fog was rising and wafting about over the water as he rowed his pirogue, but it didn’t faze him: he knew his way around. Funny that he never got seasick on the swamp, whereas just looking at the ocean the wrong way caused his stomach contents to come up. The door of the hut creaked when he shoved it open to go inside. Of course the old lady was awake. It was like she had waited for him.

“Grandmère?” he asked into the gloom.

“Little Merriell” a voice from somewhere inside answered him in French. “Here again so soon? And voluntarily? Most of the time y’only come when they force you.”

“I…I wanted…” Usually Snafu was not a tongue-tied man, but the mere sight of the old lady shut him up good. Having to get his dusty French off the shelf in his head and giving it a bit of a polish as he spoke was not making anything easier.

“Thanks.” He dropped it at her feet like a block of cement.

“So did it work, my cure?”

“S’ppose so. But it wasn’t…not…was not nice of you, t’ do it like that.”

“But it worked, so why’s you complainin’?”

Snafu frowned, deciding to not discuss the “cure” any further. “I also need somethin’ from ya.”

The old witch seemed to sense the tension radiating from her great-grandson, and knew on the spot that he had come to ask for the sort of thing he would be avoiding like the plague if he had any other options.

“Somethin’ like a gris-gris?” she asked.

“Somethin’ a little bigger ‘n that.”

In the gloom, Snafu could just make out his grandmother sitting up straight and steepling her fingers. They were stiff and trembling a little, as the hands of a very old woman sometimes will. When she spoke, her voice sounded business. “Three times is the custom, little Merri. Y’ already got one and two. Be careful what you use three for.”

“I… what d’you mea—"

“One – a charm of protection. A _garde_.” Snafu touched the simple steel bracelet he was wearing on his left wrist. He’d worn it throughout the war and, for some reason, was wearing it still. It was marine-issued, like the dog tags. Everyone had worn these things. His, however, was…a little different from the standard. It hadn’t granted any sort of magical protection to him in the South Pacific, but in quiet moments he had often fiddled with it, and remembered he had a home.

Nonetheless he said: “I didn’ ask fo’ that.”

“You made it outta the war, didn’t ya?”

“Not because of your bangle. I was jus’ lucky.”

This earned him a dubious “Mh-hmm” before grandmère continued: “Two – the help you got jus’ a few weeks ago.”

Snafu snorted. “Didn’ ask fo’ that neither.”

“Got ya lucky with ya _beau_ , didn’t it? Why’s you always complainin’? I’ve helped you two times. Y’ only get one more.”

“But I’m family!”

“Three times is the custom” grandmère repeated. “I don’ make exceptions, little Merri. Not for kings, gods or devils. Not even for family.”

“As if y’ ever got kings comin’ to you.” He wasn’t even going to start arguing about the gods and devils.

“But they could! If they got lost in the swamp or somethin’. And” grandmère stressed, “I would not help them more than three times. Now what did ya want from me?”

“It’s a big one this time.”

“Spill.” Impatiently.

“I wanna learn how to take a pain. Like a traiteur.”

“You wan’ me to teach you?”

Snafu nodded.

“You? Impossible. Your hands can only destroy, not heal.”

Snafu felt more than a little insulted. “Then why did ya help me the other day if you think _that_?”

“Ah. This is about your _beau_ , isn’t it? The nightmares, is he still havin’ ‘em?”

“He is.” Snafu felt like he got caught red-handed at doing something nasty. Which was bullshit. He was just trying to look out for Gene.

Grandmère tutted. “An’ you think you need magic hands t’ help him? Oh dear little Merri, jus’ bein’ there, an’ bein’ you, should be enough, don’t ya think?”

“You know, you’re not the only traiteur in the area” Snafu said, turning. There were not many types of bait he knew the old woman would swallow, but this was one. Her pride. She was not the only one, but she was the best. The legend. She was who people came to from all over Louisiana. And besides, a member of her family going to some stranger for a gris-gris? It was unthinkable. “I heard there’s a guy over in Baton Rouge who was a medic in the war. I bet he’d understa—"

“Hush, darlin’. Lemme look at your hands.”

Snafu stifled a grin as he wove his way around the bushels of herbs and other…things hanging from the ceiling, until he stood before grandmère’s throne-like rocking chair. She grabbed his hands in her two veiny ones and traced his palms, his knuckles, and tugged on every finger.

“Hmm, alright” she said. “It’s worth a try. But nothing in life is free.”

Snafu sighed. Now things got touchy. “How much?”

“I don’ want your money, cher. Listen. I am old. My hands an’ eyes ain’ what they used to be. An’ your sister ain’ always available, she must go to school an’ learn. So you’ll help me in her stead. You’ll lend me your young hands an’ quick eyes. You’ll help me make charms an’ spells an’ cures for those what ask for ‘em.”

Snafu felt his bile rise. He had always known that some of his family were involved with voodoo. He’d always disliked it. It was…not honest. Magic and spirits and superstitions and meddling with things too big for your boots. Not that he really believed in any of it.

He wasn’t an avid catholic like his mother, either. Snafu believed in…stuff. Things. Doctrines of his belief system included things like:

\-- it’ll get better if you don’t scratch it

\--germs exist and are not to be messed with

\--sometimes you have to walk away from certain situations

\--sometimes things just happen, no reason to it

But what traiteurs did was fact. He had seen them work. He’d seen them lay their hands on people and cure them. What if that was something you could learn?

He thought of Eugene. He thought of the nightmares.

“Right” he said.

“You’ll come to me after your work” grandmère said. “Fridays is best.”

* * *

 

So now every Friday after work, Snafu came out on the bayou to help and to learn. If anyone asked, he passed it off as “Old ladies need help with things, don’t y’know? Only good ‘n’ proper someone comes out to look af’er her.” To Eugene he elaborated a bit. Said he did what he did as…thanks, sort of, for the help she had provided. They still occasionally used what was left her potion to…grease the way of certain things. It just made for an extremely amazing feeling.

“It’s about balance” grandmère said.

Never one to not look after her own gain on every end of a bargain, she made him practice by chasing the pain the arthritis caused in her hands.

_At first he butchered making her charms, and the herbs she used for potions looked all the same to him. Green leaves. Brown leaves. A pinch of this or that stupid spice or oil. She was surprisingly patient. He stared down at his handiwork in thinly veiled rebellion._

“You need to feel the pain.”

He felt the pain.

“How is the pain?”

_There came the day when grandmère sighed and clicked her tongue, just about fed up with his lackluster work. She had called on him to do a job. He was not doing it. Not upholding your end of a bargain had Consequences in voudoun, capital C Consequences. She did not want to sic Consequences on her great-grandson. The thing was, she did not need to. They would just happen. In this moment, Snafu was in a precarious situation, but totally unaware of it. He was just stubborn._

_“You’re a craftsman, aren’t you, Merriell? This shouldn’t be hard.” Just the right hint of exasperation in the voice._

_Snafu stared._

_He, too, had pride._

_It reared._

_He did not know much, education-wise. His head was absolutely useless compared to Eugene’s, but he had good hands. He could fix up just about anything. Everyone should have at least one thing to be proud of._

“How is the pain? Describe it to me.”

“The pain’s a yellow, glowing string wound into your hands. Pulsing.”

“Good. Now tug on the string with ya hands.”

_As he started working on it in earnest, Snafu had to admit voudoun came easy to him. Mixing grandmère’s hell potions was what he learned first. He felt taken back to his early years, when he’d been barely tall enough to look over the stove and maman had taught him how to cook. Soon he knew grandmère’s recipes by heart._

“How’s the pain now? Where is it?”

“It’s a white-ish glowing swirl and it sits by your shoulder.”

“Yes, good. I can feel it sittin’ there. Now send it somewhere else.”

“What? Where?”

_Every Loa had their veve, the symbol with which they were invoked. Snafu watched seemingly senseless swirls and scrawls make sense under his hands as he intoned names for people names like songs: Maitre Carrefour, Maman Brigitte, Ghede Nhibo, Papa Legba… even Baron Samedi, who grandmère claimed was his patron. His djab. Every man his devil._

“Some people pray. Ask their god to take the pain.”

“I’m not prayin’.”

“Well then, my darlin’ little unbeliever, this bucket of water will do.”

_After some more tries, his charms turned out actual little works of art. Snafu might grind his teeth about it every Friday but the fact remained that he was **good**. It made grandmère smile._

_Sometimes he asked himself if his unbelieving – his borderline hatred for voodoo – affected his work in some way, tainted it maybe, made it useless. Grandmère said no._

_“But isn’ it the thought what counts?” he asked her._

_“An’ that’s where you’s wrong, my heretic child” she told him. “It’s whatcha **do** that counts.”_

_“I think” she added, “You’s amusin’ the spirits. You’s sure as hell amusin’ me.”_

* * *

 

Soon it was time to see just how good he was.

He’d drawn some water from the tap and placed it in a glass on the nightstand. That was all he needed in the way of preparation, that and to wait for Eugene’s next nightmare. When it came, Snafu was ready: he placed one hand on top of the glass, the other on Eugene’s forehead. Balance.

For an endless moment he felt the pain that dream-Eugene was going through back in the war, felt it viscerally, horribly. For an endless moment, he struggled. Then he remembered. He was the balance. Eugene’s pain looked like a red, swirling sphere in his chest, lodged over the sternum, and he coaxed it out and set it down by his left shoulder for a moment. The water steamed and started to bubble when he dropped it in there and took his hand away.

Under his other hand, Eugene didn’t wake. He stilled, and some of the tension lines in his face vanished. He looked like he was in for a good, long night of dreamless sleep. And so was Snafu. He felt bone-tired. Traiteur-ing was a strenuous task.

* * *

 

In the weeks to come, it did not become any less strenuous, no, quite the opposite, but it was worth it. Eugene sleeping through the night, Eugene looking less pale and tired during the day, smiling more, getting better…Snafu would have done so much more, would have fought the whole war over just to have this.

Eugene still got the nightmares often, and Snafu took them, like clockwork. It became a routine. He started getting real good at the whole healing thing. Screw grandmère, his hands could do more than destroy. Eugene didn’t even need to know…it was perfect. The triumph of it all was entirely worth the pain and the leaden tiredness the process left Snafu with. After all, he could easily sleep these off. It wasn’t like he was plagued by nightmares.

* * *

 

The weeks snuck by and Snafu continued to live and toil, work and sleep on this mortal plane of man. He went to the lumberyard in the morning (often, these days, he overslept and his foreman reacted with impatience and had him do overtime that went unpaid), he came home at about five and, if his time allowed it, threw in a quick nap before making dinner while listening to Eugene talk about the things he learned in class. Eugene went to bed early and thus began their nightly routine. By that time, Snafu’s body often rebelled against him, begging him with every fiber to stay put for once and _rest, goddammit_. Giving in was tempting, but then he recalled, as always, his duty to Eugene.

Eugene, his easier smiles, the rosy color of his face, his every remark about getting better: Snafu kept these images tucked tightly to his chest, and they were all the balm his own troubled soul needed. Failing Eugene, even for one night, was _not_ an option. And anyway, he had been through worse. He had survived dragging a fucking mortar canon over hills and across beaches while men dropped like flies around him, and he’d been carrying equipment that altogether weighed roughly as much as his littlest sister. He could stand a little stress. Nevermind that the healing was so hard sometimes it sent sharp, stabbing pains through his chest and ended in him curled on their bed in agony or retching the little he ate into the toilet. It could always be so much worse. Civilian life wasn’t going to turn him soft.

* * *

 

“Hey, Shelton.” A half-playful light non-punch to the shoulder woke him. “Slacking off again, are we?”

“Mmmmh.” Snafu raised his head. His thoughts were muddled with the semi-sleep that came with naps in the middle of the day. He was lying down. Couch. Eugene was there.

“You know, nice as it is watching you sleep and drool all over the couch” Eugene was saying, “Have you noticed we never seem to _do_ anything anymore? Why don’t we go out more? Or even, you know…” Eugene still turned red when even so much as hinting at bedroom activity. “What I’m saying is, I’m getting stir-crazy in here. Isn’t it a bit…boring? I never pegged you for the sedentary type.”

“O…kay, Gene.” Snafu tried shaking his head a little to clear his thoughts. Bad idea: now he was all dizzy.

“Okay? That’s all?” Eugene huffed. “Do you even listen to me? Do you even care what I’m saying?”

“Yeah. Sure. You’re bored.”

“I just, I _mean_ , I bet other couples actually _do_ couple stuff together.”

“Well an’ _I_ bet _other_ _couples_ ain’ in danger of gettin’ arrested if they’s too familiar ‘roun’ each other.” He was slurring his words even more than usual. He knew he was probably not quite alright, health-wise. Thank god Eugene was fluent in Snafu by now and could still understand him.

“Is it really that? You know there’s places one can go. You _showed_ me them…back when you were willing to put in the time.”

Snafu felt his nerves fray thin, as did his patience. Bad, selfish thoughts were raising and they clamored that after all he’d done, openly and in secret, for Eugene, he did not deserve this kind of treatment. He tried his best to suppress them, because…

The reason Eugene was complaining was that even with all he did, Snafu still wasn’t doing good enough, right? If only he could be better…if only he didn’t need to goddamn sleep so much…

So in short, he was very confused, and tired, and he tended to fight like a rat when cornered.

So maybe they had an argument, now. So maybe Snafu ended it by shouting at Eugene’s retreating back that perhaps “you ougtta look for some rich boy like you who won’t have to work all fucking day an’ has loads ‘a time for _couple stuff_ ”. So maybe he was regretting it the moment it had left his mouth.

He got up to follow Eugene, surely to apologize, surely to beg, he’d take about anything, just some time to fix this, please, although he had no bloody idea how to fix this… But his body elected to choose this exact moment to go out on him. His head was spinning. Burning. He felt feverish. Every bone he had was screaming like it hadn’t since the war, and some of them were liquid fire. Every movement was like wading through mud. Through mud and, and blood and the rain and the fucking flies and maggots and the corpses of so many fucking…no, nono, shit, this wasn't right, this wasn't here and now, he hadn’t had any of these fucking flashbacks in months, crap, it was supposed to be over…

For a second he did not know where he was. Was it New Orleans? Peleliu? Okinawa? Gloucester? He damn well hoped it was not Gloucester, there was no Eugene on Gloucester…

“Eugene” he groaned. He could barely feel his knees giving out.

Darkness, it came. He fell…

 

“Hey Mer? So, um, maybe I overreacted just now. Maybe we can…Merriell?”

 

He had gotten him to maman, because that was the only thing that felt right. The drive had been horrible – what with Snafu sprawled on the backseat delirious with fever and Eugene’s heart thrumming in his chest like it last had on that goddamn airfield. Now maman was sitting by Snafu’s bedside, clutching her son’s burning hand.

“This reminds me of when he was little” she said, her voice forcedly calm to mask over the tremor in it. Eugene could see she was trying hard not to be hysterical.

Snafu was not sleeping quietly. His eyes were shut tight but he was twitchy. Earlier he had tossed and flailed and groaned with his eyelids fluttering, as if fighting for consciousness, but he’d quickly tired himself out. He’d looked like he’d been trying to wrestle himself. Or like a drowning man wanting to get to the surface.

“What happened when he was little?” Eugene asked, just to ask anything.

“He… well. He was ten…no, eleven. His good-for-nothin’ father had just left us. We were desperate. Money was tight, an’ I had two little baby girls to care for, an’ one of ‘em even was…was a…a bas—"

“You don’t have to say it, maman.” Of course he’d seen that Judith-Marie had the tan skin passed down from where some one of her mother’s ancestors had probably mingled with the Creoles, but she was blonde, like no one else in the family. All things considered, did it matter?

Maman nodded and continued her story. “So then on top of everything else, he caught polio. Couldn’t ‘ave picked a worse moment, too. I thought I’d lose him. He got better after a week or so, but for some time…lord, I thought I’d lose him. He was…so small, but it was jus’ like now. See how he’s twitchin’? You’d think he’s sleepin’ but he is not now. In ‘is head he’s fightin’, fightin’ the reaper.”

“He can’t die” Eugene whispered. “I don’t understand. Polio’s not the kind of disease that comes back.” Or was it? Eugene couldn’t exactly say. He might have heard his father talk about it, but it could’ve as well been about smallpox or something else entirely. It had been a while.

“No, that’s not it” maman said. “After that one time, he never got sick again. Never even caught a cold. But he’s…never had it easy…”

“Ma’am?”

She looked up suddenly, tears filling her eyes. “Oh, foolish boy!” she cried out.

“Who, me?!”

“No, him. I know what he’s like! Always thinkin’ he can jus’ work all day an’ night for all it matters, long as we’re all provided for. But does he sleep right? Does he eat? Like hell he does… he’s always been like that, putting the girls first, an’ then he decided to take on that war…and _you_.”

For the first time ever, maman threw Eugene a sour look. She hadn’t done that when he’d stumbled into her home months ago, a relative stranger then. She hadn’t done it when her son had told her they’d embark on an extremely illicit relationship, or when that resulted in them having to leave her to live in the relative discretion of their New Orleans apartment. But now she looked at Eugene like she’d never seen him clearly before, and felt disappointed in what was before her eyes now.

_I’m not some burden he took on_ , Eugene wanted to protest. _I’m good for him as he’s good for me._ He knew that. He _knew_. But then he thought how Snafu had constantly looked tired these last days, which he had chalked up to fading interest in their relationship…he thought of what maman had just said about Snafu not eating right… he sat in shock as snippets of much-repeated past conversations came back at him…

( _“Nah, I’m not hungry, jus’ go get something for yourself…”_

_“Is that gonna be enough for two people?”_

_“It’s not, but I already grabbed lunch after work…you can have all of this.”_

_“Are you sure you don’t want something?”_

_“I’m okay, Sledgehamma, I’ll jus’ have a smoke_ …”)

For some _idiot_ reason, Eugene had never found it necessary to probe in earnest at why Snafu would like subsisting like this…on coffee for breakfast and cigarettes for dinner and nothing much for lunch, likely. Why he so often “grabbed lunch after work” and cooked for one and sat by watching Eugene eat. Now it dawned on him that Snafu probably didn’t _like_ it one bit. Again it was a matter of cash, and Snafu didn’t want Eugene’s assistance there (the _“I’m not a charity case, Sledge”_ conversation was another oft-repeated one). And apparently Snafu had, despite their tight budget, decided that Eugene lacking in _anything_ at all was not going to happen. Even if he had to put his own basic needs back.

“I’m—" Eugene started.

There was a harsh knock at the door.

Maman and Eugene stood up at the same time, both reluctant to leave Snafu’s side, both not wanting to make the other do it. In the end the door just swung inwards by itself.

And in came, to everyone’s surprise, grandmère with Ju-Marie tagging at her heels. Her ancient, but sturdy boat was sitting in the water by their little landing. It was rare that the old lady left her house in the middle of the swamp, rarer still that she did it without some major catastrophe happening.

“Grandmère, bon dieu…” maman gasped.

“The little one’s told me Merriell’s sick.”

The old lady’s cane made a foreboding thumping sound on the floor as she made her way across the room to Snafu’s bedside.

“W-we can’t be having with your, your un-unholy—“ maman began, trembling. If it was fear for her son or of the witch that made her tremble, Eugene could not say. He knew that maman was a rational, god-fearing woman who did not dabble in witchcraft. He also knew that everyone in the neighborhood spoke of grandmère in hushed whispers filled with almost reverence. Maman herself tried not to let that get to her, in everyday life. But this was not an everyday occurrence.

“Your son already decided what he can an’ can’t be havin’ with” grandmère now said, scrutinizing Snafu. She lifted his hand, tugged at it, pressed a thumb to his pulse point, then let go and touched his face: his forehead, his closed eyelids.

“Oh, oh” she muttered. “Foolish boy. He overused the gift.”

“What do you mean?”

“I told you your hands could only ever destroy” grandmère muttered to Snafu’s prone form, not heeding anyone else. “Even if you’re tryin’ to help, you’re destroyin’ yourself while you’re at it.”

Suddenly she turned and looked directly at Eugene. “Have you been having any nightmares lately?”

“I…no…”

“Didn’t think so” grandmère said dryly, sat down on the bed and told them a story. A story of what Snafu had done.

* * *

 

“Goodness” Eugene muttered to his hands about fifteen minutes later. “This is all my fault. I should have noticed something, I should have been less _selfish_ , I…it’s my job to look out for him as he looks out for me…and I failed.”

He thought everyone present would agree, expected maman to look at him with disgust, tell him to never come near her son again and cast him from her house never to return, but she didn’t. She seemed wrapped up in her own personal grief, her bright blue eyes – the Snafu blues – staring straight ahead at nothing in particular.

“God knows I raised him to be like tha’” she muttered to herself. “God knows it’s been a slow build up to this. And I coulda…I coulda just remarried back then, but why do that when I had a twelve-year-old handy to drop the burden on? A-and he was so proud of himself…and he was gettin’ on well an’ I thought…”

Eugene dropped his hands from his face and stared. “He started working at _twelve_?” To him with his sheltered childhood, it was unfathomable.

“Brought his first money home on his birthday. From then on ‘e’s never had one free day, not one… a-an’ he was so small an’ it broke my heart but what else could I do? The laundry job wasn’ enough to feed three kids… an’ I w-was so concerned for the girls, I clean forgot I was slowly murderin’ my baby boy…” She sobbed. “I’m the worst mother…I shoulda supported him, should have at least told ‘im…”

Grandmère clicked her tongue. “Look at the both of you. Pityin’ yourselves like ya bein’ paid for it.” She thumped her cane on the floor two loud times, shaking them out of their respective bubbles of self-loathing. “You’re still makin’ it about you! This ain’ about any of you! Get outta here an’ let ‘im rest, goddammit.”

“But what will you d—?”

“There’s nothin’ I _can_ do. ‘E’s sick because he hasn’ been treatin’ himself right. Either he gets over it or he doesn’t, but I reckon ‘e will. With a lot of rest, he’s gonna be good enough eventually. Good enough for all of this to start over. An’ _that’s_ where you two come in.”

“I don’t understand…” Eugene began.

“I do” maman said.

“Good, Our Serafine. Maybe you can explain it to Pretty Boy here” grandmère said in her curt way. She didn’t specify whether she meant Eugene or Merriell. She just turned her back and made her exit.

* * *

 

The doctor who was called upon later said the same thing. A pale young man roughly of the same age as Snafu, he made the impression on Eugene that he might as well be the next one to keel over from stress. But maybe that was just from the pallor of his skin against his dark shock of hair, or the way his face always seemed to look like he was faintly in pain. But he had a deep, soft, calming voice. He diagnosed malnutrition and exhaustion – nothing they hadn’t known before. Much like grandmère, he suggested to give it time, and gave maman some additional advice on how to lower the fever. He also hummed thoughtfully when taking Snafu’s pulse and noticing the bangle on his wrist. He tried to tug at it, but Eugene said “Don’t. We tried. He thrashes when you try to take it off him.”

The doctor looked from the bangle to Eugene to Snafu’s face and back. “Where did y’all serve?” he asked softly.

“Marines. Pacific.” He added: “What about you?”

“Yes” the doc said quietly. “Shell-shock flaring up?”

“Maybe” Eugene replied. “Not sure.”

_It’s my fault_ , he wanted to say into that pallid face. _He’s like that because of me._

“Malnutrition” he muttered, shaking his head. “We were malnourished in the fucking _war_.”

No one really listened to him. Maman was busy negotiating with the doc about payment for the house call: she didn’t have a lot, he didn’t want to accept a lot, she still insisted on the usual price. She’d pay it off later. They were fluttering around each other in a painful, awkward, polite dance. For the first time, Eugene really thought about how much of an issue money was to these people, and how little of an issue it had ever been for him.

“Hey, I’ll just cover the costs” he said.

Maman was scandalized.

“Please, ma’am” Eugene interrupted her before she could even start to speak. “I messed this up. I’ve got to pay. And besides, I just _can_.”

The doc looked from maman to Eugene in curiosity, but took Eugene’s money without questions. Eugene was glad of it.

* * *

 

Snafu slept for a long time.

The first night was the worst: a heavy rain had started to go down on the swamp, and the noise of it and his worried thoughts kept Eugene awake. Around midnight he got up – to get a glass of water, he told himself – and when he came past Snafu’s old bedroom, he couldn’t help peering inside.

Maman was there, sitting by her son’s bedside still. The light of a single candle illuminated her face. She had never looked so tired. Eugene could have joined her, but he didn’t move. After all it was him who had spectacularly messed this up. He felt like he didn’t have the right to this vigil.

“Eugene.” A whisper in the dark. She’d seen him.

“Yes.”

A heavy sigh wafted through the quiet air between them, as if she had taken it and handed it to him. “I can’t bring his fever down.” She made a noise that might have been a short, half-swallowed sob. “It won’t go down.”

“Yeah, that might…take a while.” He tried to sound calm like his father. It was hard when he felt like the sadness of it all would make his chest burst apart. He took a look at Snafu, who didn’t look like he had moved any during the last few hours. His breaths were very flat. And had he always been so _thin_? Or was it just the candlelight? He looked small and alone and somehow more vulnerable than he had seemed sleeping in a foxhole. Eugene wanted to curl up on the bed and wrap his arms around his lover’s slight body and protect him from everything. He wanted to cry and yell and shake Snafu and tell him to cut the bullshit and wake up.

“Excuse me, ma’am” he whispered quietly and left for the front porch.

Listening to the rain still beating down on the dark water, Eugene lit his pipe. How could he appear so outwardly calm? He wanted to scream into the merciless rain. He wanted to go and drown himself in the swamp. He wanted. Something. But he didn’t move.

He turned around facing the house. There were lights in two windows: the flickering candle in Snafu’s bedroom, and soft lamplight in the room that belonged to Leelee, who had apparently chosen to stay up until midnight to practice on the old third-hand violin they had gotten her for her last birthday. The song she played was the saddest thing Eugene had ever heard.

* * *

 

In the morning, maman rose from where she had passed out in a chair next to her son’s bed and made breakfast. After that she went out to take the girls to school and collect the neighborhood’s laundry. Life was going on. But Snafu didn’t wake up.

In the afternoon, Eugene asked maman where he might find a telephone.

“Our neighbors, the Westleys, have one. Who d’you wanna call, cher?”

Fifteen minutes later he stood in an unfamiliar living room while a girl with a baby on her arm was watching him suspiciously, and dialed home.

“Sledge residence, Edward speaking.”

“Edward, it’s Eugene—"

“Eugene! Hi there, little brother! How’s the life of a sexual deviant treating you?”

“Umm…? Life is…I’m fine. Listen, is father around?”

“Oh, yes, he just got home, I can get him. How’s your…?”

“Edward, it’s kind of urgent.”

“Kind of urgent? Did you get in trouble? Are you hurt? Did you--?”

“I told you, I’m fine! It’s just, I’m using the neighbors’ phone, and I don’t want to inconvenience them. Can you just get father, quickly?”

Edward seemed to catch on to Eugene’s frayed nerves for once, because he put down the receiver and could be heard scuttling to their father’s study. Seconds later, Eugene heard the quiet voice of his father in his ear.

“Eugene?”

“Yes. Hello. I need your advice.”

“Hmm. Advice, huh? That is, as a father or as a doctor?”

“As a doctor. I’m fine” he hurriedly added. “I just…made a mistake. And Merriell got in harm’s way because of it.”

* * *

 

After the talk with his father, he felt better, but only slightly. The grueling shame that he had allowed this to happen still ran deep, all the way back to the war when Snafu had been nothing but his buddy – but you didn’t let your buddy down. Back then, he had known how to read Snafu’s moods like the morning paper, had known when he was close to shutting down or pitching a fit or attacking his own forearms with his KA-BAR at night because he needed to hurt something, somehow. And then he’d gone and prevented it. But now? Had peacetime and the security of their relationship dulled his senses _that much_? How could he possibly have been thinking that Snafu enjoyed the same comforts as he did when it had always, from the beginning, been Snafu who had worked himself to the brink of exhaustion and bloody _starved_ himself so Eugene could have them? And then, for his sake, Snafu had even gone and gotten involved with his grandmother’s magic that he hated, and paid the price for it. Had he just _enjoyed_ his life as it had been, comfortable and free of nightmares, too much to notice or bring it up?

When he came home, Snafu still hadn’t woken up.

* * *

 

On the second day, Eugene felt like he had already memorized every inch of Snafu’s old bedroom, sitting by the bed and waiting, looking around and trying to distract himself. It became painfully obvious that Snafu must have spent his whole childhood sleeping in there and had never seen the point in redecorating, so it was probably the same as it had been the day he’d shipped out for the war. Save for some family pictures and faded posters of race cars on the walls, the room was pretty bleak, so there wasn’t much to look at here – except for Snafu, who was still sleeping like a… _like a corpse_ , Eugene thought. He reached over and took Snafu’s pulse. It was there, and it was steady, and that calmed him a little.

“Come on, Shelton” he whispered. “Come on. Wake up.”

But he knew that if – no, _when_ – Snafu woke up, he wouldn’t do it because Eugene, or anyone else, had convinced him. He’d do it in his own damn time.

* * *

 

Snafu woke up on the third day.

He did it feeble as a kitten and surrounded by people who apparently wanted nothing more than to say sorry to him. Well, there were only his mother and Eugene, but to his still feverish mind, that seemed a lot already.

The first thing he said was: “What the fuck?”

And: “Why’m I here?”

Then, after a moment’s consideration: “I didn’ pass out here.”

Maman wiped his forehead softly. “Bébé… you’ve been sleepin’ for three days.”

Snafu did not receive that well. “Three _days_?!” he asked. “Fuck. I gotta…” He made a weak attempt at getting up, but maman held him firmly down, Eugene hovering anxiously by her side in case his help was needed.

“It’s okay, it’s oookay” she soothed. “I called your boss an’ told ‘im you’ve come down with somethin’. It’s alright. You jus’ stay down.”

“I’ve…come down with…?”

“Shhh honey, you just took on a bit too much, hmm? But I’ll make sure…we’ll…”

Maman hesitated, this woman who usually knew just the right comforting words for every situation suddenly tongue-tied. Snafu blinked at her. It looked like he was trying to scope out what this situation was, and not coming up with much intel.

“I’ll go make tea” she whispered at last and hurried out of the room. Snafu’s hazy, glassy eyes roved and found Eugene.

“Gene” he moaned.

“Yes, Mer, I’m here.” Eugene dared to sit down on the bed and lightly grasp Snafu’s hand.

“I fucked up, Gene” Snafu said faintly. He tried to sit up a bit, as if this was important for him to get across.

“It’s not your fault” Eugene tried to calm him. “Please just make sure to take care of yourself in the future, okay? I never wanna see you like this again.”

It wasn’t clear if any of this had really registered when Snafu asked: “Three days, she said?”

“Yeah.”

“Fuck, I’m sorry. Fuck. _Fuck_. I fucked up, Gene. I let you down.”

“You let me down? By _sleeping_?”

Snafu stared at him, his lips slightly parted. Apparently the fever was making it hard for him to think. All he knew for certain was that he had fucked up, and tremendously so.

“I…you’ve been…” he sputtered.

“Save your breath. Please. Your grandma was here.”

“Wha--?”

“Yeah, and she told us what you did for me.”

“What I…?”

“How you took care of my nightmares for me.”

Gradually, Snafu seemed to understand. There it was, his secret, out in the open. “Shit” he muttered. “ _Shit_.”

“Snafu.” Yes, sometimes it was still impossible to call him anything else, no matter how hard Eugene tried. “Maybe I should leave.”

“What?” Snafu repeated. Now it had more than a hint of panic in it. “No, Gene, no no no, I’ll fix this, I’m sorry, I’m—"

He was growing more hysterical by the second. He tried to make a grab for Eugene’s hands, feeble and manic. Eugene, immediately realizing his mistake, tried his best to shush him.

“Shh, I’m not mad at you, shh. I don’t want to leave. It’d break my heart to leave. Just…I hate to see you like this. And it’s my fault. Maybe you’re better off without me. I’ve been nothing but a burden on you and I should have… I should have noticed what you were doing. I should have made sure you took care of yourself as much as you took care of me.”

Snafu mulled that over, his eyebrows furrowing. A bead of sweat dripped down them. After a moment he said: “I don’t understand. Why…?”

“Why.” Eugene let out a desperate little laugh. “ _Why_? Because you’re important, too.”

“I don’t…”

“I will literally not argue with you on this. Easy, now, I can hear your ma coming with the tea. We should try and get some food in you, and then you should sleep some more. We can have this discussion when you’re better.”

Then Eugene just watched as maman made Snafu have some sips of her tea and fed him a few spoonfuls of broth – just as many as would not make him sick. Predictably, Snafu pushed her spoon away pretty quickly and maman looked worried and Eugene did his best to ensure her it was alright to go slow with these kinds of things. He remembered well the days after the Okinawa campaign, when they had been shipped over to China after months of living on shitty K rations and even shittier coffee. They’d all been so emaciated, and some of the guys at first had overeaten until they’d puked, just because there suddenly _was_ so much food, and _good_ food. They had all but forgotten how to handle that.

The minutes of being awake, emotionally exhausting as they had been, seemed to have tired Snafu out again. When maman asked how he was feeling, he made a nondescript humming noise and promptly fell back asleep. Eugene now tried to tug his hand out of Snafu’s loose grip, but Merriell, without waking up, tightened his grip and reeled him back in. So Eugene stayed seated where he was and monitored Snafu’s sleep.

When it was getting dark outside, Snafu grew more restless, tossing and grinding teeth like he’d done in the war and never since. Soon he jerked upright, disoriented, clammy and with wide, wild eyes.

“Gene” he gasped.

Eugene squeezed his hand. “Right here, see? It’s okay.” Snafu looked down at their conjoined hands. It seemed to ground him, if only a little.

“Gene, fuck, I thought they’d got ya.”

“Who?”

“The Nips, Gene, the fucking Nips!”

“I’m right here” Eugene repeated. “And we’re safe from the Nips here.”

“You sure?”

“A hundred percent.”

Snafu seemed to deflate. “This ain’t the line” he said.

“No. It’s your ma’s house. The war’s over, remember?”

“Fuck.” Snafu sunk back into the pillows. “It’s too hot” he complained. “Too fuckin’ hot. Kinda like Pavuvu. Next thing y’know it’s fuckin’ crabs crawlin’ up ya asshole.” He was getting incoherent, words slurring into one another. Already his eyes were drooping closed.

“It’s alright” Eugene whispered, as his voice seemed to give Snafu a sense of continuous safety. “I know it feels like you’re burning up, but that can’t be changed, and you’re getting better already, see? Your body’s sweating all the sickness out.”

“C’mere, Gene” Snafu mumbled, weakly patting the empty space on the bed. The request made Eugene smile as he lay down and put a careful, gentle hand on Snafu’s - much too defined - hipbone. An hour later, maman would find them fast asleep with all their limbs as entangled as could possibly be, and her heart would swell in her chest with love for the two of them.

* * *

 

In the following days, Snafu spent more time awake as the fever gradually went down. Eugene skipped classes to be with him at all times, maman fussed over him whenever her time allowed it as if she was driven to make up for twelve years of leaning on him in one go – for Snafu, who was not used to being given much attention, this sometimes became grating, until he told them in no uncertain terms to get lost. If they wanted him to rest, they had to let him _get some rest, goddammit_. In these stretches of time, only Leelee was allowed inside his room, where she would quietly lay out her textbooks all over the bed and do her homework sitting on her brother’s knees.

To no one’s surprise, Snafu was not a happy patient. He griped and moaned not so much about his condition, but that he was being forced to remain idle, when he _despised_ being useless with all his being. Wasn’t he _used_ to pushing himself? Hadn’t he stood so much _worse_? Why wouldn’t they _let_ him out of bed? He was doing _fine_. After another few days, maman relented a bit and let him move from the bed to the rocking chair on the porch, under the condition that he took at least three blankets. Snafu complained about being treated like a frail old man or an invalid, but accepted nonetheless. Eugene suspected that he secretly enjoyed having people wait on him for once. Also he still needed help to walk all the way to the front porch. Even as his fever was subsiding, he was still not back to full strength, but at least Eugene didn’t have to accompany him to the bathroom anymore.

There was also the Conversation they still had to have, and now that Snafu was back to being fully lucid, Eugene presumed they should absolutely have it. But he found a joy in nursing his partner back to health, like another one of the walls Snafu had built around himself was opened up to him now, which introduced a new sort of caring, a mutual tenderness into their relationship. He didn’t want to talk or think of leaving. He realized how much he needed Snafu – not the things he’d done for him, but just his presence by his side. Just his voice and his curly head and his blue eyes and his body that smelled of home close by. Then he realized that maybe he was being selfish again.

He sighed and puffed his pipe.

He had zoned out on the latest of Snafu’s sleepy rants. “…an’ you know I think I’d be a lot better if I had a smoke” Snafu was saying.

“I think you’d be a lot better if you had a bath” Eugene replied.

“Are you sayin’ I smell?”

“I’m saying it’d make you feel better.” Eugene paused for effect. “ _And_ you smell.”

Snafu only grunted, but he didn’t seem averse to the idea, because after a minute he said: “Okay then, but you gotta gimme a hand.”

“Two, if you need ‘em.”

Together they made it over to the bathroom, and Eugene filled the tub and watched Snafu strip with still-clumsy hands and slide into the water. He grabbed a bar of soap.

“I’m gonna wash your hair for you, is that alright?”

Of course Snafu protested. “Gene, Jesus fuck, I can manage, I’m—"

“I know. I just like doing things for you, and I like your hair. So please indulge me?”

Snafu shrugged and grunted, which Eugene took for an affirmative. He started lathering his lover’s hair with soap. He really did like playing with Snafu’s curls. Somehow they got even curlier when wet. Snafu hummed and pushed his head back against Eugene’s hands in an almost catlike fashion, so it looked like he was enjoying this too. He closed his eyes and sighed when Eugene massaged his scalp, a pleasured, blissful expression on his face. Eugene was loving it. He couldn’t remember when he had last taken such a joy from simply caring for a person without any selfish thought behind it. In the war he had looked out for his buddies so his buddies would look out for him. It had been a relationship built of necessity: you needed to be able to rely on the man next to you. And before the war, well, it had always been him at the center of his family’s attention. Did that make him a bad person? A weak one?

“Merriell” he said.

Snafu hummed again, relaxed and at peace. Eugene hated to break this moment, but he had to.

“Do you remember what I said to you when you woke up for the first time after those three days…?”

“Not much, why?”

Eugene repeated it to him. “So I’ve been thinking. You only got sick in the first place because I wasn’t attentive enough. I didn’t look out for you enough. I should have noticed. I even gave you shit for being exhausted, for Christ’s sake! I feel guilty about that now.”

“Ain’t gotta.”

“But I do. I’ve been nothing but a burden on you. I’ve been horrible to you. You must have been mad at me, at least a bit.”

“Maybe a bit” Snafu said in a casual voice. As if it wasn’t very important whether or not he was mad.

“So why don’t I ever see it? If I’m hurting you, please tell me! Call me out for being an asshole! Yell at me! Punch me in my stupid face if need be! But don’t just sit there and take everything as if you were my dog. No, scratch that” he added, thinking of the late Deacon. “I wouldn’t have treated my dog like that. God, what the hell is wrong with me?” He tiredly pinched the bridge of his nose. He felt like banging his head against the sides of the metal bathtub. “Am I such a horrible egoist?”

“Nah, Gene. You ain’ horrible. Jus’ maybe a bit spoiled.”

“Spoiled.” Eugene laughed, the bitter kind of laugh. “You know what? You’re right, that’s what I am. I’m spoiled. I thought the war had taken that away from me, but apparently it’s still there clear as day.” He sighed. “Maybe I should leave. Go back to Mobile. Not because I want to but for you. Maybe you’d be better off without me.”

“Bullshit” Snafu said.

“But it isn’t!”

“But it is. Eugene, please. Are you gonna give up on everything because one stupid thing happened once?”

“That stupid thing almost got you killed.”

“Pssshhh. Wasn’t that bad” Snafu said nonchalantly, leaning back against the rim of the tub.

“It was that bad. You thought you had to take on my nightmares without telling me. You thought you had to go _days_ without eating so I would have everything I could ask for. And god forbid I notice you were struggling! You thought this was just the natural order of things! And I only noticed when it was almost too late. I’ve been a horrible partner, I’ve been—"

“Gene…”

“God…” Eugene sank to his knees next to the bathtub, leaning heavily against it. “Mer, it may not look like it now, but I love you so much. I want you safe and happy and with someone who deserves you.”

Snafu was silent for a minute. The only noise in the room was the gentle sloshing of the bathwater when he shifted.

“I dunno who deserves what” he said at last, slowly and thoughtfully, “But there ain’t no one I want. Jus’ you.”

“But I—"

“Gene, look. This happened. Okay. Whatever. Try an’ see it as…a wake-up call, sort of thing. You jus’ gonna have to get with the program. But it doesn’ mean you’re gonna have ta leave an’ shit. Let’s say from now on, I call you out on ya bullshit, you call me out on mine. An’ then we’re gonna have a better thing goin’ on than we had goin’ on before.”

Eugene thought about it. “You’re saying we need to learn how to talk.”

“Somethin’ like that, yeah.”

Eugene knew that it was not going to be easy to do that. They both had a lot to overcome. They would not look back on this moment one day and remember it as the moment they had magically solved every single one of their problems. But hopefully they would remember it as one of the many moments their relationship grew and progressed into something greater. It was going to take many steps. It was going to be exhausting at times. There would be other incidents like this coming, other fights, other issues.

But they loved each other.

They were determined to make it work.

“You know what? That actually sounds really good to me” Eugene said.

“Well, I’m a fuckin’ genius” Snafu muttered.

“Hmm. This water’s getting a bit on the lukewarm side, isn’t it? Let’s get you out and into bed.”

“But I don’t wanna go to bed again! I’m not some fuckin’—“

“I know, I know, but look, you’re tired, aren’t you? Listen, if you go take a nap now without further protest, I’ll tell maman you’re ready for solid foods for dinner, that sound like a deal?”

Snafu grinned. “Hell of a deal, Sledgehamma.”


End file.
